The representation of one’s identity evolved over the past from being centralized to federated to user centric to self-sovrin. Most of the systems started being centralized, where the identity attributes were maintained centrally in silos. Even within the same organization, there are cases where each department maintains its own employee data independently. Not just the Internet giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft, but also the governments maintain identity information centrally.
Aadhaar, a brain-child of the Indian government to secure its residents’ fundamental rights to have an unforgeable identity, is the largest collection of biometric data in the world. It has captured fingerprints and iris of more than 1 billion residents in India. In addition to biometrics, Aadhaar also collects name, date of birth, gender, address, mobile/email (optional) of every resident (no need to be a citizen), and stores those centrally against the corresponding finger prints and iris patterns.
In USA Integrated Automated Fingerprint System (IAFIS) run by the FBI is another large repository of biometrics, which includes fingerprints, facial images, and other physical characteristics, including height, weight, hair, eye color, and even scars and tattoos. The database has more than 70 million criminal records alongside 34 million civil records that law enforcement agents have available on a 24x7x365 basis, managed centrally.
